Sergeant Klopp called the men forward and they laid twelve muskets out on the ground in front of Septimus.
“Six sentries and a squad of six more who were asleep but fully dressed and with their pieces at their sides, sir. Back-up, sir.”
“Very good, Sergeant Klopp. Fall back to the Castle now. We can expect them to send a runner back to their main camp and for horse to be out at first light. We can put a small party out on the hillside with a telescope in the morning.”
The men would wish to have a confirmation of their count.
“That went very well, sir.”
“It did indeed, Mr Purkiss. They will be far less carefree in future, I suspect. Pairs of sentries and fires made up all night at a minimum. They may well get into the habit of digging in every night – a trench and abatis or something like round their sleeping areas. Probably they will put their own parties of light troops out at night. They will not sleep easy, that is for sure!”
“Is there any great point to it, sir? I know that a soldier’s job is to kill the French, and that is exactly what we have just done, but does it bring us any closer to their final defeat?”
“A good question, and the answer is a definite yes, Mr Purkiss. Battles are won inside men’s heads, to a great extent, you know. If men think they will win, they are more likely to do so, even with lesser numbers. If the French become frightened of the night and the Englishmen it may contain, then they will be less inclined to be aggressive in the daytime, for wanting to be sure of a safe sleeping place. They will think more of saving their lives than of ending ours. Even their generals will be forced to think of how best to protect their men and will be less inclined to make risky attacks. A soldier who will not take risks will not win, Mr Purkiss; mind you, one who takes the wrong risks will certainly lose!”
“How do you tell a good risk from a bad risk, sir?”
“You make your risks into good ones, Mr Purkiss, in part by making the enemy believe that you are better than them.”
The morning saw a great coming and going from the French batteries, senior officers riding up to inspect the scene and then holding prolonged conferences on the spot. A battalion of infantry marched in and set up camp and then posted sentries in platoons, marching beats and then calling to each other all night.
Engineers came later in the week and pushed under guard into the entrance to the ravine where they raised a drystone wall and strongpoint capable of holding a company, blocking the whole exit. The ravine was less than one hundred yards wide and they were able to fire to either side from the tiny fort.
Major Taft watched with interest as the French laboured and made a careful sketch map of all they produced. He laid the sheet in front of Septimus.
“The cliffs, sir, rise to two hundred feet on the side nearer to us, at least fifty feet higher on the other. Very steep, sir, those cliffs, I doubt it is possible for a soldier to climb them. There are ways up from the main valley, I expect, sir, but not close to. There are loose rocks on top, sir…”
“Do you think they would?”
“They might, sir.”
“Good! Take your companies and find out tomorrow, if you would be so good. Brief your officers tonight. Will you attack from one side or both?”
“Both, I think, sir, but not necessarily at the same time. Wait and see what happens, sir.”
“Very good. I shall look forward to your report, sir!”
Perceval’s companies took over all of the guard duties that night and waved the five companies goodbye as they tiptoed out in the darkness before dawn.
Septimus made a point of not being present during the planning or the early execution of the attack; he had to show confident in his juniors. He ate a dinner in the company of the Marchioness and the Count’s daughter and retired to his own quarters, joined later by the lady who pointed out that she still could not be absolutely certain that the marquis was to have an heir. They did what they could to make the matter more probable.
The musket fire could be heard clearly soon after the men had breakfasted.
“A sharp little action, Mr Perceval.”
“Noisy, sir. Should I take two or three of my companies out?”
“No. That is to show a lack of faith in Major Taft – and we must build him up in his own esteem. He tends to be diffident, you know, and must get more in the way of confidence. Have two companies ready to make a sally and hold either side of the ravine if needs be.”
The firing tailed off and there was silence for half an hour before a sentry called out that the half-battalion was in sight.
“Marching in, sir, in good order. Some casualties, sir.”
The Regimental Surgeon was present and sober; he was under the strictest orders never to drink in the daytime. He might have been an abstainer, for all Septimus knew, but it was safer to assume that all surgeons were drunks and to give them orders accordingly and he was, certainly, a very short-tempered little man, always ready to take offence.
The bandsmen were lined up behind the Surgeon, acting as the medical party when not playing their music. It seemed an unsatisfactory arrangement to Septimus; he would have preferred to have dedicated carers for his sick and injured men, but there was no provision to pay for them.
The gates opened and Taft led his men inside. Septimus made a note to have a quiet word with the young man; he should have waited, watched them past, always have been the last to enter the safety of the Castle. Probably he would have been last in if there had been a pursuit – he was not in any way shy.
Only a few walking wounded and four improvised stretchers, but he could see seven, perhaps eight men carrying two muskets.
Taft came to attention and made his first, verbal report.
“We marched out at five-and-thirty minutes after six o’clock, sir, and took position, four companies on the near-side cliff and Captain Greenwood with his company on the far side. Mr Greenwood was under instruction to wait until I had commenced the action, to take his cue from me, to lie low until then, unless he had to defend himself. The tops of the cliff were covered in boulders, sir, many of them too big to move, but there were a substantial number of head sized and bigger that we could roll across to the edge, as I had hoped.”
Septimus noted that he had ‘hoped’ – he had not taken an inventory of what was available while he had made his sketch map.
“The French had a thin company manning the wall and the little stone place they had built. Fifty men at most, thirty or so of them under cover, their reserve, I presume, sleeping, and four groups of four sentries spread along the wall.”
“No lone sentries, Mr Taft?”
“No, sir. I looked about and could see none in the rear, watching that we had not circled round. I was surprised at that, sir.”
“Poor soldiering, Mr Taft. I expected better of them.”
“We got the men ready, sir, and rolled the rocks over the edge, all together on the whistle. Mr Greenwood was watching and did the same.”
Very good, so far.
"Only a few of the French were actually hit, sir, but they all panicked and ran every which way and the wall and redoubt were both damaged, actual holes, sir."
"Good."
"The men hung out over the cliff edge, sir, watching and cheering, and the French saw them and formed up platoons and fired a volley; well, several volleys in fact. So we formed up and returned the fire. The one shooting high up the hill, and the other down, we neither of us did a lot of harm, I think, sir."
"What was the bill?"
"Four of ours killed, sir, privates all. Four hit and down, sir, not in the way of walking. Nine with flesh wounds, sir, all ambulant."
"Seventeen in total."
"Yes, sir. Captain Greenwood was hit in the arm, sir, and Sergeant Chisholm is on a stretcher."
"Let us hope both may recover. They are valuable men. What was your count of the French?"
"Well, sir, we did not take a full count, could not in the nature of things. But we saw t
hirteen down and unmoving and eight who were taken to the rear for bandaging."
"One and twenty from about fifty - those are certainly high figures, decimated four times over, sufficient to destroy a company, or so one might expect. We had hoped, however, to take almost no losses ourselves, Major Taft."
"We should not have, sir. I allowed the men to gloat, to show themselves to yell insults at the French. Had I kept them back, out of sight, we would have lost none, sir."
Septimus nodded, said nothing. There was no point to formally rebuking Major Taft; he knew he had erred and, hopefully, would not repeat his mistake. It was a pity that his learning had cost lives, but that was the nature of the military - the Army was not dealing with spilled milk and broken eggs.
"I suspect that the French will build another strongpoint to cover the ravine, but at a distance of a hundred yards or so from the cliffs. They must control the area, cannot allow us free rein unless they intend to withdraw from the whole valley, and that they will not do, I think. There is little point to marching hundreds of miles across Spain only to turn round again at the first check."
The quartermaster came to Septimus later that day, reporting that he was worried about the water supply to the Castle.
"Used to be, sir, they had all they needed for them and their animals, but they got a lot more of mouths now, sir."
"A good point, Mr Black. Have you a suggestion?"
"The stream, sir, what flows down the side of the little valley to the front, sir. Build a wall across, there's two or three places where it could be done, sir. Stop the water just running past and going to waste, sir."
"Show me, Mr Black."
The hills were steeper on the far side of the ravine, had far more expanses of bare rock, the stream running down in a series of small falls, from step to step as it were. It would be possible to build a dam no more than four or five feet high and thirty to forty feet across on almost any of the drops.
"Do you know anything of dam building, Mr Black?"
"Nothing at all, sir."
"Neither do I. Take two companies a day, different each day, of course, and pile up loose rocks across the stream and see what happens in two places. If they work, then perhaps it will do no harm to build two more - one can never have too much water."
The men complained that they should not be used as labourers; that was not a soldier's task.
Septimus passed the word unofficially that any man who did not wish to work on the dams was to be excused. He must simply give his name to his sergeant and he would be first to have his water stopped if the battalion ran short.
Perceval was much admiring.
"Better far than ordering and flogging them, sir! They are all working and showing willing! Amazing, sir, most crafty!"
Septimus shook his head, quietly, but took the opportunity to drive home his message that discipline did not always need the lash. Persuasion, sometimes admittedly of a vigorous nature, had its place.
"The men, sir, wonder that the sheep and goats are permitted in the Castle, taking up space and consuming supplies. They fear that our horses and mules may be run short by the villagers’ flocks, sir."
"How often do we eat mutton rather than ration salt beef, Major Perceval?"
"Ah, yes. Good point, sir! I shall pass that message on, sir."
It was sometimes difficult dealing with subordinates of very limited wit, but in the very nature of things, if a man was intelligent and had a choice then the Army had little appeal as a career. To be realistic, both of his field officers were smartly turned-out and neither was at all shy - an infantry battalion could do very well while those qualities were present.
The weather turned cold and wet, the paths icy of a morning. Enquiry disclosed the opinion that winter had come early this year.
"Heating, Mr Black. How are we off for fuel?"
"I have charcoal coming in from local burners, sir, and may well have sea-coals brought up from Lisbon. The order has gone in and there may be a few loads pulled across the tracks. Some of the local men are working the hillsides for me, bringing in all of the dead wood they can lay their hands on. I have had palliasses stuffed with straw for the men to lay on, to keep them off the stone floors when they sleep. All of the emptied flour sacks have been kept dry and are to be issued as extra covers for the cold weather. I had thought of the onion sacks as well but their smell tends to be overpowering, sir. Many of the men have bought fleeces, sir, from their own money - things are cheap here."
"Well done, Mr Black! A good quartermaster is worth another hundred muskets to any battalion, sir!"
Black returned to his stores and lists, pleased to be appreciated. Most officers simply swore at the quartermaster when things went wrong; this one was different, and worth working for.
There was a light snowfall within the week, changing the nature of the terrain – raiding parties could not use the tracks across the hills if they were to leave their footprints behind them.
The marchioness said it was almost certain to thaw within days; it was too early for prolonged snow, they were too far south and not quite high enough.
“I wonder if the French will know that…”
The French evidently did not realise that there must be an easing in the weather yet; they crammed themselves into the cottages and byres of the villages, withdrawing from their advanced redoubts and the few trenches they had dug to control the tracks.
"Was we to take a company or two up to the most northerly village, gentlemen, it might well be possible to set a few places alight in the night. Not easily, of course, the places are stone built with only a small amount of timber and no thatch."
"Better to locate their artillery train, sir. They must have fodder stacks there."
"And powder, sir!"
Both majors were enthusiastic about the possibilities of the situation. Their little band of cutthroats could be utilised again, equipped with slow match as well as sharp knives.
"We can use the ravine and the track through the valley, sir, and so leave no indications in the snow of the hills. We can use the hill paths later in the winter, sir."
"What of the horses and oxen, sir?"
Septimus shook his head.
"If the chance arises, bring them in. If it does not, then they must be shot, I am afraid. It is not their war, that I know, and the men much dislike killing them, but it must be done, unless you can see a way perhaps to cause them to scatter into the hills."
Men who would casually destroy another human being turned pale at the prospect of killing helpless animals; many a hard look was cast at Septimus when the orders were promulgated through the ranks.
The Portuguese horsemen returned with orders from Lord Wellington in the field.
"No change, gentlemen. We are to send the marquis to Lisbon if the occasion arises, but that does not mean to resurrect his corpse, I suspect! The Portuguese Militia are to be encouraged in their discipline and training. Officers will eventually be sent to bring the Portuguese into their own Army. We are to harass the French as possible and must continue to deny them food and comforts. It is believed that there are forces of Spanish irregular troops in the field and that they are attacking the French lines of communications; they are referred to as 'guerrilleros', which is said to mean 'fighters of the little war', whatever that may imply!"
Reluctantly, Septimus remained behind the walls while the majors took out some or all of their companies at least once every week. They came back with the occasional horse or span of oxen and always with their tale of dead sentries and burned wagons or barns. They lost a few men, a tiny but steady trickle of casualties, often of the boldest and best of the ranks, the men who had pressed forward and taken the greatest risks.
Heavy snow fell early in the New Year and Septimus took the opportunity to bring the raids to an end; he had a feeling that they were taking almost as many losses as they were inflicting upon the French. They had forted up in the villages, had built stone walls, stood whole platoons
as sentries, were far less easy to kill than they had been.
"Time to let cold and starvation do their bit, I think, gentlemen. Strong patrols to ensure that the Frogs do not penetrate our lines and keep them away from our flocks. No more attacks for the while. The word from Headquarters is that more than one half of the ration convoys coming from further inland are being cut up by the Spanish irregulars, so hunger must already be real in the French lines. I think a series of patrols in company strength would make good sense - keep the men busy, even five miles out and back will take the edge off their restlessness at being confined to the Castle. Not too great a concern for fine details of uniform, I think - those who have sheepskins to be permitted to wear them; those who have none will soon lay their hands on one. I had rather they spent their shillings that way than on buying cheap wine."
"Will the French raid us, sir?"
"I think they must, Major Taft. Many of their officers are said to be very good soldiers and will not wish to see their men starving and dying of cold. They will wish to obtain food and fuel and we are the sole source left. What do you suggest?"
"Use our guns, sir," Perceval said. "A platoon down the track in the ravine each night, with a fire of dry scrub soaked in lamp oil and covered under a canvas, ready to be lit and flare almost instantly. They to fire a single volley as a wake-up call and then to retire, the cannon to be ready laid and to fire as soon as they have a target. Roundshot rattling through the rocks at a furlong or so distant, then canister as soon as they come within close range, if they do. Watch the tracks into the hills in daytime - they will not easily be used in the dark and will certainly be impossible for men to retreat on loaded down with rations or the carcasses of sheep or goats."
"Desperate, starving men may try anything, Major Perceval. We should maintain posts on the hills where they can observe the tracks in the daytime and put pickets out at night. Never fewer than five men, always in a place where there is some cover and if possible a chance of a hidden fire so that they may warm up in turn. Better make that eight men, in fact, four on and four off at any given time, an hour about. Have we a sufficiency of corporals?"
Blood and Famine (Man of Conflict Series, Book 4) Page 10